According to MultiFunding research, in 2010, the top 25 banks controlled about 61 percent of all deposits, but made only 20.3 percent of all SBA 7(a) loans. Smaller banks held about 39 percent of all deposits but made 79.4 percent of all SBA 7(a) loans.

These banks are in your community as “deposit shops” to collect and send your money to Wall Street for god knows what. But it isn’t good for your community, that’s for sure. Move your money out of these banks. It’s just not good for the country.

]]>By: ADI_Financialhttp://blogs.reuters.com/small-business/2011/05/27/big-banks-see-slow-recovery-for-small-business/comment-page-1/#comment-4247
Tue, 31 May 2011 18:25:58 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/small-business/?p=5052#comment-4247It’s true that many banks are looking to make new loans to small and mid-size businesses.

Now is the right time to revitalize your relationship with your local banker. Conduct a performance review and a strategy discussion with your banker and put the bank in your corner.

Start the meeting with a review of clean, coherent financial statements that demonstrate you are on top of your business’s performance. Continue by sharing a reasonable budget and a 3-5 year forecast which clearly shows the capital needs and cash flow characteristics of the business.

Your typical CPA is not going to lead you through this process. Engage a part-time CFO and make your banking relationship an area of strength for your business. The ROI will be extraordinary.

www.adifinancial.com

]]>By: ChuckBlakemanhttp://blogs.reuters.com/small-business/2011/05/27/big-banks-see-slow-recovery-for-small-business/comment-page-1/#comment-4237
Sat, 28 May 2011 15:14:09 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/small-business/?p=5052#comment-4237Marc Bernstein’s comment below is simply untenable in light of what they did to kill small businesses in 2009:

“We are trying to do everything we can to get people who apply for a loan approved, but the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of small businesses that unfortunately have been hit very badly by the downturn and are struggling and it’s hard to see how they’re going to handle more debt.”

In 2009 Wells Fargo went through small business accounts with a machete and cut virtually all business lines of credits to zero, without so much as a notification letter. I was told by my Wells Fargo branch officer that they did not look at any individual accounts, credit history, etc. – just killed them all to make their own financials look better to the Feds.

Then insult to injury – AFTER these tens of thousands of business owners borrowed against their personal lines of credit, Wells Fargo jacked the interest rates on these lines to historic highs while they were enjoying a $25 billion bailout and historic low interest rates from their buddies at the Fed.

To say they are “doing everything they can to get people to apply for a loan” is nothing short of con man encouraging us to play three card monte. Or maybe it’s Lucy encouraging Charlie Brown to kick the football again.

Since the collapse of 2008 and the political hype to fix “too big to fail” Wells Fargo and the other 18 banks that were found to be too big to fail now have a larger share of the market than they did in 2008. What we learn from this is that big business, big banks and big government are all in each other’s pockets and the hyperbole that Marc Bernstein expresses in this article is just that.

$25 billion later Wells Fargo became got the gilded cage and all small business got from them was the bird. And I don’t mean the one with feathers.